A Rare Exception

By David Henderson

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“More Americans believe in global warming–but they won’t pay much to fix it.” So reads the headline of an article by James Rainey on NBC News’s web site. Read the piece and see if you agree with me that that is the most important part of the article. Why? The line underneath the title says why: “Americans are unwilling to pay $10 a month to fight climate change, a survey found.”

Or you can just read the second paragraph:

But even as two new surveys confirm the public’s growing awareness of global warming, they also indicate that the issue is still not a front-burner concern and that taxpayers don’t want to pay very much to rein in the greenhouse gases that are at the root of the problem.

Almost the whole of the rest of the piece looks at all the encouraging news that Americans are increasingly convinced of, and concerned about, global warming. But the majority of these self-same Americans don’t want to pay as much as $120 a year to fight global warming.

Why my title, “A Rare Exception?” Because normally when mainstream media people write about global warming, they talk about what a threat it is and, if there are any data on the cost of doing something about it or the amount people are willing to pay to do something about it, they tend to leave such data for the end of the piece. But in this article, the line underneath the headline and the second paragraph discuss how little people are willing to pay. (Note: That amount is far below, by about an order of magnitude, the cost of the various proposals people have.) In other words, they make the most important part of the article the part that gets the most attention.

By the way, the polling data are consistent with many other bits of polling data on government programs that cost something. Ask people whether they want a program that sounds good, and a strong majority will often agree. Then ask the same people if they want a program that sounds good and costs even a modest amount, and that majority will quickly fall to a minority. As University of Virginia political scientist Steven E. Rhoads wrote, after sharing such data in his modern classic, The Economist’s View of the World, “We, the public, seem quite willing, if given half a chance, to believe that there is such a thing as a free lunch.”

READER COMMENTS

David D Boaz

Jan 25 2019 at 4:21pm

I was surprised that this Washington Post story about a poll put right up front the fact that people aren’t so keen on “Medicare for all” if told they would have to pay for it. Even though the rest of the article seemed to drop that point.

blink

Jan 25 2019 at 5:35pm

I would not put any stock in the “interpretation” about what Americans are willing to pay based on this survey. The question asks about a *specific policy* option: would you vote for an ordinance adding a $1 surchage to electric bills in your area to raise funds to fight climate change? (The value of $1 randomly varied among respondents to $5 or $10, etc.)

What do we learn? Americans do not support local governments imposing electricity surcharges in the name of fighting climate change. I might value fighting climate change very highly but not trust the government with the money, not think electricity is the right item to tax, or think that local action is impotent. Many other interpretations are possible, all more likely than the gloss in the article.

David Henderson

Jan 25 2019 at 5:58pm

Good point. I should have read the poll question.

But here’s my guess: If people were asked about a national tax on all carbon uses to fight climate change and told that it would cost $30 a month, a majority would balk.

blink

Jan 26 2019 at 12:17am

I agree with your conjecture. I merely intend to chastise the author for far overreaching. (If the pollers encouraged this interpretation, I would call is downright shameful.) The article does make a nice example of what to watch for and how not to argue with statistics.

Matthias Goergens

Jan 25 2019 at 8:00pm

It’s good open borders are free!

Matthew Marks

Jan 25 2019 at 10:27pm

Though I enjoyed and agreed with Rhoads’ quip about the public wanting a free lunch, I’d be curious if anyone ever tried to falsify my hypothesis:

When you start asking people to commit to dollar-amounts for high-minded things they support, they get more bayesian. That is, they half-consider how often the (US) government achieves its intentions. They might think, “we do OK at science and technology (we go to the moon), but the government doesn’t do so well when it crafts and implements programs that use social coordination.”

I can imagine an alternate USA, the United States of Not Messing Around, that only makes SMART goals, does post mortems of all of them, and has a 98% success rate. I’d give $10/month forever for US-NFA to tell me, “You don’t have to worry about climate change.” I wouldn’t do the same for USG.

robc

Jan 28 2019 at 8:46am

Jan 26 2019 at 10:18am

It is almost like real-world decisions involve trade-offs and not just isolated expressions of desire.

A poll that asks whether men want six-pack abs is worthless. You need to ask how often they are willing to hit the gym for it.

Thaomas

Jan 26 2019 at 2:36pm

I wonder if the “pay for” that people were responding to was the dead-weight loss of a revenue neutral carbon tax or what?

Roger Frantz

Jan 27 2019 at 12:45pm

Can the global warming poll be understood in terms of willingness to pay, and willingness to receive? Willingness to pay to fight global warming but willingness to receive not to care?

Jonathan Seder

Jan 28 2019 at 7:17pm

But as Bjorn Lomborg explains in today’s New York Post, that $120/year is orders of magnitude greater than the present value of any likely climate change cost, which in any case is infinitesimal against likely future economic growth. Imagine if our great-grandparents – who lived in uninsulated shacks, burned wood and coal in open fires, experienced infant mortality rates over 40% – were told they could increase our wealth (a century in the future) by even 1% by forgoing a meal or two a month.

We can only guess what advantages and advances the future will bring, but it’s a sure thing that giving more money to politicians will not do anything to affect the climate but rather will increase the deadweight load on the economic and reward rent-seeking campaign contributors.

Comments are closed.

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